Life of Pi

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. you become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.”

Yann Martel's Booker prize winning novel  Life of Pi is a breathtaking blend of an adventurous story with a spiritual tale told with a poetic flare.  It is about a sixteen year old Indian boy who sees no reason why he cannot be Christian, Hindu or Muslim at the same time. The only thing Pi want to do is "Love God."

“Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.”- Pi

His family decides to move to Canada and they aboard a Japanese ship,"Tsimtsum" along with their wild zoo animals. The ship sinks and Pi is the only human survivor.  Also surviving are a hyena, a rat, an orang-utan and a tiger named Richard Parker The story becomes one of survival of Pi as one by one the animals are killed off until only Richard Parker remains. What follows are 227 days adrift.  How Pi deals with finding food, water, storms and staying alive with a starving predator aboard makes up the majority of this unique and unsettling novel. 

Pi's relationship with Richard Parker (named for the man who originally captured him) changes throughout the book. At the outset, Pi feels fear. Eventually, however, the tiger gives him both direction and purpose.

The Life of Pi is not really about a boy castaway and a tiger.Instead it is about "faith".

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love.

A tale of human endurance. We learn of the lengths a human (or any animal) will go to to survive, and how the mind copes with it. It is an extremely unique, thought provoking book.  It has something to say about Life. It is not preachy but deep. As its prologue predicts, it makes you believe in God.